


Not of Nirn

by Amethyst97Skye



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Ghosts, Infinity Gems, Magic, Mystery, One Shot, SHIELD, Suspension, Teleportation, The Tesseract (Marvel), World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 08:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11144931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethyst97Skye/pseuds/Amethyst97Skye
Summary: Loki did not arrive in S.H.I.E.L.D's secret laboratory alone, and the creature that followed him was not of any known universe. At least not one the Avengers expected.





	Not of Nirn

Something – no, some _one_ – broke her fall with their body.

She would thank them later.

Despite her experience, having travelled through many a portal in her day, and the predatory grace she commanded as easily as she blinked, there was nothing easy, graceful, or fleetingly familiar about _this_ sickening mode of transportation. Give her horses, dragons – Divines, she would have taken Hermaeus Mora’s Black Books over _this_!

If felt like a summoning, a concentrated attack that left her paralysed, frozen in Time, incapable of attacking, defending, or even breathing. The stars of Sovngarde flashed before her eyes, and then they were swallowed by a blinding light, the colour branded behind her eyes.

Blue.

It was not blue as she knew it, not blue like the sky, not blue like frostbitten flesh and freezing fingernails, not blue like the flawless sapphire seated inside the Shrine to Kynareth, and not blue like the tattered, hastily dyed patchwork leathers the Stormcloaks wore in place of a uniform. She had nothing to compare it to, nothing she _wanted_ to compare it to, wild and unrestrained as it felt.

Something – no, some _one_ – pushed her up and away, off them and into something hard. Her helmet hit it, the _clank_ of metal on metal resounding like a gong. It rang in her ears, distorting her blue vision further, making the world appear as if everything lay underwater.

The Thalmor had given her a better welcoming.

And free food.

She still had not stolen their recipe for Seared Slaughterfish but, alas, she had more pressing concerned than what she would eat for dinner.

Barely ten yards from her stood a man. He did not have pointed ears, scaly skin, or a furry tail, so he was most assuredly a man. He wore robes of emerald green and Summerset gold, the fabric fitted to resemble armour, the planes melding seamlessly, projecting the illusion of wealth, confidence, and superiority. His hair, black like polished ebony, neatly trimmed and naturally straight, had been slicked back and fell just shy of brushing a pair of slender shoulders sporting a deep green cape. Not a warrior then, but a rogue – with a flair for drama – though the rest of his apparel screamed ‘mage’.

He held himself like a prince – no, a _King_ – and the golden sceptre locked in his right hand, just an inch or two shorter than himself – had been fitted with a glaring blue gem, its colour fluctuating as if it held all the spirits of Skyrim’s Ghost Sea inside. There could very well be souls trapped, surrounding the heart, a shield designed to protect the focusing crystal seated within. Shatter the crystal, and the staff became little more than an obscenely long paperweight, or kindling if one was in the mood for an explosive pyrotechnic show.

Her vision was beginning to stabilise, and she grabbed something, a bar fashioned from impure iron – it bent and bowed in her hand, she could smith stronger nails than this – and the man turned to her as she heaved herself up into a sitting position, forced to use the wall for support. She caught sight of impossibly pale flesh, a sharp nose, and ravenous green eyes. They were the colour of liquid envy, jealousy and disease, but despite his hunger – for power, she was quite sure – there was a clinical calmness, a certainty that came with age and experience. If he was, indeed, a human, she would put him in his mid-thirties, or maybe his early forties at a push. If he was part mer – most probably an Altmer, his sheer arrogance was rolling off him in waves – then he could very well be centuries old.

It was fortunate, then, that she was ageless.

He had power, a magic that felt foreign to her, and he radiated energy like a Dragon Priest - though he was much easier on the eyes - and it unnerved her how inhuman he looked why wearing the skin of one.

How very Daedric of him. If he knew Sanguine, then they would be having _words_. One whirl around Skyrim was more than enough for a lifetime. Being engaged to a Hagraven had never sat right with her.

There was another man, an Imperial – or perhaps a Redguard, without a closer look she could not be certain – and he was dressed head to toe in black. He was bald, with a patch over his left eye, and he held a small, strange contraption made of silver metal.

Interesting. Sorine would simply love to take it apart. Perhaps she could bring it back for the Breton as a souvenir. Stranger things had happened.

He kept referring to the stave-wielder as ‘Loki’, a name she did not recognise. If he _was_ a true priest, restored by some means unknown to her – though it would not remain a mystery for long – then his name would have been forged from three syllables. His was barely two. ‘ _Lo_ ’ meant ‘to deceive’ or ‘lie’, a Word of Power associated with illusion and trickery. ‘ _Lok_ ’, on the other hand, meant ‘sky’, but the One-Eyed-Man had fixed his name with the possessive suffix ‘ _-i_ ’ meaning ‘my’. Yet, he pronounced it ‘ _Lo-key_ ’ and ‘ _key_ ’ referred to a ‘horse’, or ‘steed’.

So, ‘ _Lo-key_ ’ was a deceiving steed who, potentially, had a desire to claim the sky for himself. Did he really think himself worthy enough to challenge Kynareth like that? Did he think himself omnipotent, like Miraak? Did he know he would die screaming for his mummy? They all did in the end, and she was particularly looking forward to putting this arrogant Altmer bastard-of-a-brat in his place.

Her muscles were beginning to relax, and she no longer wanted to vomit over the smooth stone floor – wherever she was, they had _marvellous_ masons here – but her body protested to the slightest of movement. Breathing was fast becoming a battle of wills, and she called forth her Magicka to aid her recovery, to heal her wounds and replete her stamina.

Or, rather, she tried. She tried very hard. She was very trying.

When called upon again, she let the energy float and saw it shimmer in an orb around the silver box the One-Eye-Man carried. She could not explain what he wanted with her Magicka, or how he had come to obtain it since he had not, to her knowledge, even seen her. He had been standing across the room, over by some other people in open white robes and strange clothes, and a set of large black boxes. Now he stood with his back to her, rabbiting on in a language she could not put a name to.

Later. She would learn it _later_. Later, when she was _not_ at risk of dying.

She had two – no, three – options: one, play the distressed damsel; two, try to communicate with the unusual humans; three, reclaim her Magicka and kick some ass.

When she first tried to summon her Magicka, it had spread out inside the orb, lighting it up like an Enchanter folded runes into armour: evenly, cleanly, and calmly. This time, she had it attack hard and fast, each whip striking the same place with incalculable speed and strength. The One-Eyed-Man looked down at the silver box. It was trembling. Around them, the world was shaking. She had eyes for nothing except the orb, the blue-blue-blue orb, the walls of which were cracking, splintering and shattered without warning, consuming them all in a bright blue explosion.

There was too much, more than she had ever possessed, and it had nowhere to go except through her. She channelled it outward, acutely aware of the world falling around her, and forged a barrier constantly renewed by the endless stream of raw Magicka.

Was this how Ancano felt when he drew energy from the Eye of Magnus?

If so, then why had he continued? It was _agony_! She was being pulled apart. Blasts of energy, her own Magicka, rebounded and hit the barrier, collapsing in on itself, consumed by the superior strength of the energy she wielded, a term she used loosely. There was a very great risk that it would soon control her and consume her entire being. What she was focused on was another orb of energy, larger and darker than the one that imprisoned her Magicka, the force responsible for destroying the temple around them.

Everything appeared to have been made of stone, so what else could it be?

A castle, perhaps. Maybe a fort, but it did not matter. It would not be anything if she could not stabilise the magic. The moment her Magicka connected with the hostile force, she drew breath and found her sight restored, unaware that it – and all her other senses – had left her. She could see so much, so far, the host of so much power. Most of it had to be redirected to fight her faceless enemy, a branch of magic infected by her unexpected arrival. Hers, and Loki’s.

God of Mischief -

Death to the Deceiver!

King-slayer -

_Kin-slayer!_

Frost Giant -

\- instinct over sense.

Across the rainbow bridge...

_Genocide!_

Death and destruction -

\- fears the God of Thunder.

Bond of Brothers...

The voices disappeared as suddenly as they came, and as the field of black magic turned a sickly grey – volatile, but not openly so – she forged an orb of her own, syphoning the endless reserves of Magicka inside around a stone-cold heart, a gem unlike any she had ever seen. She held it in her hands, imprisoned inside the cube layered with the souls of Skyrim’s ghosts, and lives of countless other worlds. She felt their pain, their fear, their hope that they might yet return home.

Help us.

Save us!

_Free us!_

“How?” she begged.

Smash.

Shatter.

_Salvage the stone inside._

Yes, she had seen the stone, the beautiful stone. There was another, she was sure, locked behind the shield covering the crystal atop the staff of the false God, Loki.

No, that was not right. He was in legion with the Gods of his world, not hers, but he was, undeniably, a false King. She had already killed one false King. What was one more? Even Gods could bleed, and he was no God, unworthy even of standing in Alduin’s shadow.

He will use us -

Kill us!

_Sacrifice!_

An army at his command...

The Earth - will - burn!

She was still holding the Cube when he blasted her, the magic rebounding off one another, sending her flying backwards into the wall. She had her arms raised high, poised to slam the blue box into the ground, the cold glass imbued with every ounce of her Magicka.

Her world bled blue and then faded to black.

She lost sight in both eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I have NO idea where this is supposed to go. Want more? Please leave Kudos or a comment to let me know.


End file.
